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Did You Know?

Trivia:

The models of Kong built for the island scenes were only 18 inches high. When producer/director Merian C. Cooper decided Kong needed to look bigger while in New York, a new 24-inch armature was constructed, thus changing Kong's film height from 18 feet on the island to 24 feet while in New York. While it's true Kong was made to look larger in the New York scenes, there is no reason to believe one inch corresponded to a foot in the scale of the models. It's clear when looking at Kong on Skull Island that he's more than three human's tall, which is roughly how big he'd be if he were 18 feet. A specific height was never given.See more »

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The body of the brontosaurus is visible through one of the trees it passes.See more »

There's little new I can probably add here, judging by the amount of
comments, but here goes. King Kong is still one of the greatest fantasy
films. It has inspired generations of filmmakers, writers, and other
artists, all of whom have been awed and thrilled by the level of
craftsmanship involved in its creation. The film haunted my nightmares
as a child; there was something absolutely frightening about Kong's
glaring eyes looming in the windows of the wrecked elevated train.
Thanks to television and repeated showings every Thanksgiving for years
(thanks WOR) I became smitten with this film. Nearly 30 years later-
post the 1976 remake, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, etc,
I still sit down every few months to watch Kong. EVERY time, I see
something new. The detail they put into this film is phenomenal,
considering it was released long before television or VCRs could give
viewers a chance to watch it enough to notice the more subtle details.
Volumes have been written about this movie's production, but one effect
still has me puzzled. When Kong is in his cave, just before he sets Ann
Darrow (Fay Wray) in a small opening in the rocks, the head of the
elasmosaurus can be seen surfacing and submerging in the pool behind
him. If it was done in stop motion, it's the smoothest work in the
film; even the pool's water actually appears to ripple around the head.

Willis O'Brien is the man primarily credited with bringing King Kong to
the screen, but in truth, Kong was the brainchild of Merian Cooper, a
truly larger-than-life film producer, on whom the character of Carl
Denham was modeled. Cooper had been a fighter pilot in World War I, a
POW after he was shot down behind enemy lines, and- with his partner
Ernest Schoedsack- had traveled to the wilds of Asia and Africa to film
documentaries. Cooper imagined King Kong as the logical extension of
his true life exploits; exaggerated but a recognizable caricature of
his experiences. Originally he had wanted a real gorilla to portray
Kong, and even wanted to have it fight a Komodo dragon! (Call the
Humane Society!) We can all be grateful he encountered Willis O'Brien
(who was working on his own dinosaur film- Creation) and decided to
produce Kong and the monsters of Skull Island using stop-motion. I
doubt anyone in 1933 could have tolerated the spectacle of a live
gorilla in real combat with a Komodo dragon. I suspect the film would
have either been banned outright or been little more than a grisly
footnote in motion picture history. The idea was Cooper's, but the
majesty and spectacle of the film belong to O'Brien. The miniature
jungle settings created by O'Brien's crew with multiple glass paintings
created an otherworldly quality to Skull Island that could not be
duplicated by shooting on location- as Cooper had originally
envisioned.

To be sure, the film is very much a product of a simpler time. However,
if the acting in Kong is compared to its early 1930's contemporaries in
the horror/fantasy genre, it holds up quite well. Cooper and Schoedsack
understood the necessity of establishing the characters before Kong's
entrance, but kept dialog to a minimum. The story is told visually,
with camera-work furthering plot points that may have seemed didactic
otherwise. The film is carried by not only its visual imagery, but by
one of the first feature length music scores. This was an innovation
that put King Kong ahead its sound contemporaries, which relied quite
heavily on the spoken word and direction alone. There is a ten minute
sequence in the center of the film- after the death of the
tyrannosaurus until the escape of Ann and Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot)
from Kong's lair- that is told entirely with visuals, music, and sound
effects. It is in large part due to the score that much of Kong's
emotional impact is conveyed, particularly in its finale atop the
Empire State Building. Steiner was able to suggest Kong's emotional
state, assisting O'Brien in providing empathy to a creature who in
reality was only an 18 inch high puppet.

It is a mistake to compare Kong technically or artistically with films
from later decades. Consider the cultural context in which King Kong
was produced. America was in the darkest days of the Depression. World
War II was seven years away, and nobody outside of a few physicists
knew what 'atomic bomb' meant. Kong truly was the 'Eighth Wonder of the
World' just as the Empire State Building was at the time considered the
greatest technological marvel. As Cooper envisioned it, Kong was an
adventure escapist film, offering Depression-Era audiences something
that at the time would be considered the 'ultimate in adventure.'
Whether or not Peter Jackson's proposed remake of Kong can maintain
these qualities of showmanship and adventure is a matter of wait and
see: to today's audiences Kong no longer represents something 'all
powerful' or able to 'lick the world' as Carl Denham described him back
in 1933. Even setting the remake in 1933 will have its difficulties,
since the film will then be a period piece rather than a contemporary
story, as both the original film and the 1976 remake were, and audience
involvement may be more limited.

Like Star Wars, King Kong was a made for the movies myth, not based
directly on any previous source other than Cooper and O'Brien's
imagination. It spawned one of the first monster movie sequels, one
remake, (so far) and countless imitations, parodies, and merchandise.
Among fantasy films, only the Wizard of Oz can rival King Kong for the
sheer longevity of popularity, but while Oz provided escapist
entertainment, it did so in a lighter fashion. Kong provided escapism
but of a more disturbing and haunting kind.

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